As weather breaks and snow begins melting at lower elevations, more hunters are expected to take to Oregon’s outdoors—not for the chance to harvest a deer or elk but to look for their shed antlers. (Oregon’s buck deer shed their antlers from late December through March and bull elk shed them from late February through early April.)
But one prominent member of the sport is recommending shed hunters delay their search awhile longer.
“I’ve lived here in central Oregon for almost 20 years. We’ve had some big snow years but this is the longest time I’ve seen snow consistently on the ground—since Thanksgiving,” says Rob Tanner, co-founder of Oregon Shed Hunters, an organization devoted to education about ethical shed hunting. “It’s making it difficult for wildlife to get around, especially deer.”
Tanner admits it’s tempting to go out now, especially because severe winters can congregate deer and elk and make for prime shed hunting. “It’s easy to think since there is not a lot of snow now that the critters are fine, but that’s not necessarily the case,” he added. “They are still burning winter reserves and aren’t ready for people to be pushing them around.”
Tanner recommends delaying shed hunting until later in spring. The organization has even pushed its annual Group Shed Hunt back a few weeks until late March. “If we want to preserve our shed hunting ways we need to make every effort possible to be ethical,” says Tanner. “Utah has closed the entire state to shed hunting this year because of the hard winter. If we don’t want regulations like that for Oregon, it’s important that we all practice ethical shed hunting.”
The Oregon State Police and the Oregon Department of Wildlife also want to remind shed hunters of a few other regulations. Remember it is only legal to pick up naturally shed antlers in the wild, not antlers with skulls attached.
Oregon Big Game Regulations state that “No person shall possess or transport any game mammal or part thereof which has been illegally killed, found or killed for humane reasons, except shed antlers, unless they have notified and received permission from personnel of the Oregon State Police or ODFW prior to transporting.” (Note that such permission is rarely given and it’s usually only for situations where skull/antlers will be used for education purposes.)
People are allowed to sell or exchange shed antlers, but certain rules apply. Only naturally shed antlers, antlers detached from the skull, or a skull split apart can be sold or exchanged. For antlers detached from the skull or skulls split apart, the seller must have legally taken the game part (e.g. on a big game tag or after receiving permission from OSP or ODFW to remove skull and antlers from the wild in the first place.)
